Cisco Systems in talks with several state governments for smart city projects

JAIPUR: Cisco Systems, which sells telecom equipment and video conferencing hardware to top firms globally, is in talks with several state governments for smart city projects, at a time when it is undertaking similar projects in states such as Rajasthan.

In an interview with ET, Cisco India and Saarc President Dinesh Malkani said the company is currently also looking to increase the pace of its investments in Indian startups that are building disruptive tech solutions in areas such as Internet of things, cloud computing and analytics. “Majority of the states are looking at blueprinting their plans around how the smart city roadmap is going to be ready.

Some have blueprinted it and are ready, the others are in the process of blueprinting it,” said Malkani, without disclosing the names of the states the company is currently in talks with.

Cisco is working also with states such as Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on smart city projects. In May, Jaipur announced its intentions of rolling out digitisation initiatives across the city and had said that it intended to transform itself into a smart city over the next few years, with the help of Cisco.

In its first phase, Jaipur has created digital infrastructure to offer citizens amenities including intelligent kiosks, wireless broadband, safety and security services, traffic management and environmental updates.

The second phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of February 2016.

Earlier this year, Cisco’s investment and venture capital arm set aside $40 million to invest in early stage Indian startups focused primarily on three verticals — connected mobility, big data and Internet of things.

Malkani said the company may even increase the amount for startup investments in India, depending on the availability of startups and, more importantly, the viability of making such investments. Globally, Cisco has a corpus of $240 million to spend on startup investments and buyouts.

In India, over the past 5-10 years, Cisco has invested in more than two dozen startups, with nearly a dozen of those investments coming over the past 12-18 months.

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